


At Journey's End

by lirulin



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Kink Meme, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Trespasser AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 06:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20169931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirulin/pseuds/lirulin
Summary: Solas meets the Inquisitor after a long time apart and is deeply confused by how disinterested she seems in his plans.





	At Journey's End

**Author's Note:**

> I realized I hadn't archived this one and, boy, I should fix that, especially considering my recent desire to write more. The text below will remain unaltered because, boy, editing a Kink Meme fill four years later is a level of anal retentive and revisionist I would rather not be, but I may correct the odd typo. This should be either two or three parts, ultimately.
> 
> A fill written for the Dragon Age Kink Meme, forever ago: https://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/15543.html?thread=59217079#t59217079.
> 
> Original Prompt at the end.

She was beautiful still.

Under the watery memory of sunlight, she seemed like a dream. Wrapped in the hazy glow of the gardens, surrounded by the shattered remains of his people, by littered Qunari corpses forever frozen in stone, she still had the power to steal his breath. His gaze lingered on hers across the distance; she looked exactly as he remembered. It had only been a few short years, but they had felt so much longer, and there was so much to say. 

Her eyes were locked on him as though he was a trick of the light, as though he might disappear if she glanced away. She needn't have worried, however warranted her wariness was; he had no intention of vanishing today. He had never been eager to tear himself away from those eyes. They were clear and fathomless, as they had always been; it would have been such a simple thing to lose himself in them.

But that was not his path.

His smile was a rueful, gentle thing and as the expression curled across his face a thousand emotions welled up beside it. He had lingered here, had waited with the selfish hope that she would find him, that her wit and skill would bring her here in time to catch him. She hadn't disappointed him, but that was hardly surprising. It was foolish of him to meet with her. She was the only living soul who could read his every intention as clearly as words on a page. He would reveal too much if he stayed, of that he was certain, but he couldn't walk away again. 

Her people had a saying, did they not? Love makes fools of us all?

"I suspect you have questions," he said, quietly, as though they still stood in the Rotunda, with only his desk between them.

Whatever force had held her still, whatever fears had frozen her in disbelief, his words dispelled them entirely. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open as she sucked in a soft, astonished breath. She was moving within a heartbeat. Her grace did not fail her, even in this treacherous terrain, and her blind, eager steps never faltered as she all but ran to him. The only sound that answered his statement was the clatter of wood on stone. Her fingers abandoned her staff without hesitation and, when she reached him, empty-handed and awestruck, he was the one frozen in place.

She threw her arms around him without reservation, without care for his armor, without fear that he might betray her again, that he might slay her as he had the Vidasalla. She pulled him close, held him tightly, furiously, and he nearly stumbled as her whole weight came against him. He couldn't have fallen, not with her fingers fisted so firmly in his furs, in his tunic. He could feel the way her hands trembled with the effort. She clutched at him desperately, unabashedly, and her cheek pressed hard against his as she ducked her head against the side of his own. She embraced him with abandon, as though the act itself was the only thing that mattered, and the words he had crafted for this moment were forgotten, eclipsed by the sincerity, the absolution of her trust.

"Solas," she said, her voice barely more than a choked whisper, thick with tears and carrying relief so complete it was nearly reverence. "You're alive, you--"

Her arms pulled him tighter, constricted as she buried her face against the curve of his neck and shoulder. He could feel her trembling smile against his throat and the hot slide of tears as they gathered on her cheek and wetted his own. She swallowed as she drew a stuttering breath. Her words were too heavy for her to bare, but she tried and, fool that he was, he made no attempt to stop her. 

"I missed you so much." Her voice was smaller then, tight and high, and she did nothing to curb the emotion in it. She withheld nothing from him, not in this moment, and it was all he could do to lift his arms and return her embrace. His was unequal to hers, a fact he recognized instantly and with a twinge of self-aware disgust. He did not draw her closer, did not pull her to his chest until he drove the air out of himself, not as she had. He had not succumbed to the way his heart sang in her arms, though he could not think less of her for coming apart against him. 

She had not been the one lost to him, after all. 

His arms were gentle around her and, by some miracle, his restraint held. He lamented it, this hollow victory over his heart, even as he savored her crushing embrace.

"I know."

He could feel the searing burn of the anchor, the ripples that it carved into the delicate partition between this place and the raw Fade. The mark flared to life, guttering and greedy like an oil-fire on her soul, but Evelyn's grip was unwavering. Her breath hitched against his throat as agony consumed her, but she did not release him. His heart twisted in his chest as she strained against his armor, as she tried to draw him closer and failed. He knew how the mark ailed her, what it would do to her over time; the pain should have been unbearable, beyond any mortal capacity to tolerate, but she always managed to surprise him, didn't she?

"Shhh," he urged softly, his lips all but pressed against the skin behind her ear. Her hair still smelled of Skyhold, of high mountain cold and the heady o-zone tang of her magic. He drew a deep breath and thought of her, hair and skin alight in the cool shades of winter twilight, standing on her balcony, as he drew power from the mark. The brackish green light dulled as he siphoned its power, reclaimed it and made it his own once more, and the veil stilled as it calmed. Despite herself, or so he imagined, the whole of her relaxed as he subdued the mark; the vice-like force of her limbs ebbed with the pain and she was left nearly boneless, draped against him, holding him as a lover would…as she had.

His smile was sad and fond against the unmistakably round curve of her ear.

"Do you have nothing you wish to ask me, vhenan?" 

It sickened him to push her interest so, to drive this meeting to ruin. It shouldn't have; they could not remain like this, nor could they indulge this way again. Prolonging things was ultimately just another act of cruelty. She was silent for a long moment and, eventually, he felt resignation coil through her. She became malleable, released his clothing, and let out a sigh. He eased her away from him and was struck by a quiet, bitter pang of regret. Her smile was small but her eyes, her impossibly deep, knowing, human eyes were filled with such love--no. He stepped back from her. 

The distance was less than half a step, little more than a handspan of air, but it yawned in the stillness; it was necessary.

She stared at him in silence. 

Years ago, before they had come to this, he’d noted her tendency to become lost in thought. She had always paused during their discussions, weighed her words, and carefully crafted everything she intended to say. She was a thoughtful creature and patience had always yielded unexpected, precious results. Now, as he waited for her to answer, he knew that she was not lost in contemplation. 

She simply looked at him, her eyes shifting gradually as she marked his face. Her gaze sought nothing, demanded nothing of him, and the lack of curiosity in it was both strange and unnerving. Her eyes took him in with an inexplicable intensity, but there was no guile, no confusion, no anger in them. It set him on edge, to be seen so plainly, to have her look at him like this; he had known her more intimately than anyone else in this world, but he did not understand this.

"No."

Her answer stunned him. She'd said it so easily, and her face betrayed nothing. 

She wore her very heart exposed before him: her expression, her eyes, the set of her stance, they shielded nothing from his sight. He tried to find her meaning, to see what she knew of his path, of all...all of this, and came away with less than nothing. A thread of panic wound its way through him; did she know his plans already? Had his agents been caught? Did he stand here, already ruined, offering excuses to the woman who had bested him? His eyes shifted, tore themselves from hers and flicked to the Eluvian that stood so far behind her. 

What didn't he know?

"Solas," she urged softly, his name the very shape of her smile. She repeated it and her fingers lighted on his jaw. His head snapped back to her with such speed it jarred him; his panic had spread through his limbs and he was tensed to leave, ready to flee her presence before he was undone. Her fingertips, warm and soft, rested feather-light against his face. Her smile took on a note of something he could not name. 

"It's alright" Her assurance was so out of place he couldn't begin to parse its meaning. "It will be alright."

He was rigid and unyielding when she leaned closer, as still as the statues that now littered this place. Her forehead rested against his and his jaw clenched beneath the bare pressure of her fingers. Her smile fell, just slightly, but she didn't draw away. 

“It’s alright.” The words were meaningless, they had to be. If they weren’t a simple platitude, he couldn’t begin to comprehend what they meant.

When she tilted her head and pressed her lips against his, he could do nothing, could think of nothing but flight. The kiss she laid upon him was excruciatingly tender, an unbearably fragile thing brushed against unmoving lips. If his stillness offended her, he could not see it, could not feel it. With that done, to whatever end it served, she was finally contented and drew away from him. She stared a moment longer, just a few lingering seconds, and then she turned away from him--

"Goodbye, Solas."

The sound of her boots on the grass and gravel was all but deafening. His heart lurched; the rush of his pulse crowded out thought as he watched her walk away. Each step carried her farther and fed the fear that consumed him. She was so calm, so certain, it defied reason. 

Of all the ways his fool heart had feared this conversation would go, of all the possibilities, nothing he had done, nothing he could have done would have prepared him for this. 

Her staff was left, abandoned on the stones between the Qunari soldiers, and she made no move to retrieve it. It was the same one she’d wielded against Corypheus. What did that mean? At once his mind was racing, his thoughts tore past one another to reach the fore, and he struggled to find what he had missed.

What had he missed?

"Solas--" 

Evelyn paused before the distant Eluvian, her hand was outstretched toward the surface but withdrawn just slightly, curled almost hesitantly. She hadn't hesitated, not like this, since they'd first spoken in the snowy streets of Haven. He was desperate for answers, felt cornered in a way that he had not for centuries, but her voice stilled his thoughts as swiftly and surely as a blow. 

Even from afar, her eyes were beautiful. 

"I...Please--" Though she faltered, she didn't slow, she forced herself to speak. Something in his chest clenched, tight and painful, as she began her request. "Wherever your road takes you...don't forget me."

"I could never."

The answer left him immediately, it rushed out of him as easily as breathing. He barely realized he'd spoken aloud until she nodded her thanks and turned away. Within a heartbeat she was gone, vanished as if she'd never come at all, and he was left alone and confused. It was some long time before he could bring himself to step through the Eluvian at his back.

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt:  
When the Inquisitor finally caught up with him in the Crossroads, Solas was confused at how uninterested she seemed with his plots and his reasons. She barely asked him anything at all, and barely cared for the mark eating her arm, merely kissed him goodbye after a long hug.
> 
> Sensing something amiss, Solas sent his agents to watch the Inquisitor closely as she went on to disband the Inquisition, tell his world-destroying plans to the Divine, give away her things to her inner circle, and then set out alone to a very dangerous place (maybe the deep roads or a village terrorized by a dragon?) and panicked, the agent reported back to him that it looked like the Inquisitor wanted to kill herself in this last mission alone. 
> 
> Despite his own misgivings and his plans, Solas raced to where the Inquisitor is and tries to stop her. Up to A!A whether he succeeds or not.


End file.
